Tuesday, May 20, 2008

This is Mark Kinney of the All Games Considered podcast, and this is a statement concerning our recent episode in which we announced the winner of the AGC Game Tourney.

In the course of that episode, during the discussion of the general process of the tourney, I, in addressing some posting in Palladium Books' forums encouraging people to vote more than once per day, singled out a posting that, on second look, not only said they were not exploiting the system, but in fact simply referred to being able to vote once per day, which was legal in the first place. For that, I apologize to Palladium forum poster LostOne. I regret the error.

In addressing the posts that did encourage clearing cookies to vote more than once per day, I, in an attempt to balance out those claims, noted that Palladium has a large and active fan base. I should also have emphasized more those posts denouncing any forms of cheating in the tournament, and do so now. In any event, in a stance consistent with my editorial last August about the Fear The Boot/ENnie Awards situation, I will still seek options for the voting to prevent the question from being a factor in future iterations of the Tourney.

And finally, I deny claims that I wanted Rifts not to win the tournament. I encouraged organization among other game fans not to necessarily stop Rifts, but to drum up participation in general. I have in fact held up the Palladium example several times in the course of the tournament as what I want to see not just out of Palladium fans, but game fans in general, including the Palladium fans.

I cannot speak to the reactions of anyone else on the show, nor will I attempt to stifle those reactions. They had nothing to do with the running of the Tourney outside of assisting in the selection process.